Sound of Faith

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Greetings, friends and new listeners, and welcome to this Sound of Faith. I'm Sharon Knotts, and I'm delighted you've joined us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

The message you will hear today is one I preached at Faith Tabernacle Church under a stirring and compelling anointing. It's entitled, Will the Real Christian Please Stand Up!

R. G. Hardy: And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. But Jesus called unto them and said, "You know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them."

You know, the great ones exercise authority over the little guys. Now listen to this: "But it shall not be so among you. Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant."

Sharon Hardy Knotts: I am very happy just to be called minister. I don't need to be called Reverend or Prophetess or anything else. Minister Sharon Knotts is fine with me. And when I was doing this message, I just saw something I never saw before. Consider the way minister is spelled: M-I-N-I. Mini. Minimize me and magnify Him.

R. G. Hardy: And it always amazes me that Jesus, moments, moments, literally moments away from His hour of agony in Gethsemane followed by the crucifixion, the last thing He had to do with His disciples is teach them a lesson about humility and get down and wash their feet.

He said, "Now this I want you to remember. Remember this night. Remember." Saints, it's time to lay down your titles and pick up your towels and start washing the feet of the saints because people need to see a real Christian.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Nothing will turn people off, sinners and unbelievers, more than some stuck up, self-righteous, pious person with the Bible shaking it in their face and beating them over the head. You're not going to win anybody to Jesus doing that.

You can preach the truth so hot that they feel the coals of fire on their feet and still speak the truth in love because Jesus did it all the time. He put them under so much conviction they couldn't even speak anymore. And yet the broken, the bruised, the ones that needed healing, they got such love and assurance from Jesus, and they hung on His every word.

R. G. Hardy: So I ask you today, are you the real Christian? Well, let's turn to 2 Timothy 2 and verse 19. "Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His. And let everyone that nameth the name of Christ, let everyone that calls himself a Christian, depart from iniquity."

Don't call yourself a Christian if you're not going to live right. Verse 22, "But flee also youthful lust, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart." I want to know, will the real Christians with the pure heart today please stand up?

Sharon Hardy Knotts: If you want to, you can. This is rhetorical, but if the Holy Ghost moves you, obey Him. If you're a real Christian, you should be living out of a pure heart. But look in the church today. We've got people in the church that are not married and they're sexually active.

R. G. Hardy: We've got teenagers that are sexually active and some of them on their second and third baby out of marriage. And here's the thing: they have no shame.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: People make mistakes. We don't throw people out of the church because they make mistakes. But when you make a mistake, you repent.

R. G. Hardy: When you repent, you have contrition of heart. And when you have contrition of heart, you say, "Lord, I don't want to go down that road anymore."

Sharon Hardy Knotts: We've got people young and old experimenting with alcohol and drugs in the church. The divorce rate in the church mirrors the world, and even at this point is beginning to exceed that of the world.

R. G. Hardy: Now, I realize one reason why the divorce rate in the world is not going up is because people simply aren't bothering to get married. We've got people in the church on their third and fourth marriages since they got saved.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: What you did before in the world is under the blood. You didn't know. But when you come to Christ, and sometimes divorce happens to Christians. I'm not the pot calling the kettle black here.

There are times that things come in a Christian's life, the other person just turns their life over to the devil and does whatever they do, and the Lord gives Bible grounds for that innocent person to be free. But come on, number three, number four, something's wrong.

R. G. Hardy: And we've got people that convince themselves it's not adultery when Jesus said it would be a wicked and an adulterous generation. But they sit in the pews and they smile and they say, "Amen."

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Some of them are saying "Amen" here this morning when they should be saying "Ouch." We've got practicing homosexuals in the church. And after a while, they buy the lie, "God made me this way, I can't help it."

R. G. Hardy: And they're okay with Maryland now having the stigma of being one of the first states to legalize same-sex marriage. Because now they can tell themselves well, if it's legal, somehow it adds some covering to what they're doing.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: But I want to know when you stand on Judgment Day, are you going to stand before Governor O'Malley? I tell you, Governor O'Malley will stand before Jesus Christ.

R. G. Hardy: You're going to stand before Jesus. And He's going to say, "Depart from me, you worker of iniquity."

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Pornography. Pornography has become such a bondage and it's so rampant. Because unlike the old days when I was a kid, when people had to go down to Baltimore Street and sneak in somewhere, now you can do it in the comfort of your bedroom, your living room, your den, on your job.

R. G. Hardy: People go to work and sit there and get on pornographic sites on the job. And the lure and the power and the addiction of pornography is so powerful you can't even begin to understand it unless you get taken into it.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Because you know if you have a problem with alcohol and drugs, it's a struggle. Nobody's making it easy. It's a struggle. But you can separate yourself and get away from the alcohol and the drugs.

R. G. Hardy: But you cannot unplug this brain. And once you get those things burned into your mind, the devil just keeps bringing them up over and over and over again. It takes deliverance from the Lord God Himself and then it takes accountability.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: What are you going to do? Throw all the computers away and never go online anymore? We know that's not going to be.

People have to go online now just to do common things: pay bills, etc. And that lure is always going to be there.

R. G. Hardy: How many Christians, and I'm even talking about preachers, I'm talking about ministers, are hooked on pornography? And they think it's a victimless, no harm thing.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: But Jesus said if you even look on a woman to desire her and lust after her in your heart, it's adultery. It's adultery. No woman, no wife, can compete with that junk on there because once you get a taste for that stuff...

R. G. Hardy: ...once you get a taste for that which is perverted and that spirit takes you, you're not going to be happy with your wife. I don't care if she looks like Halle Berry. Because that spirit, that taste is there just like the taste for alcohol and nicotine and drugs. It's a fleshly bondage and it's spiritual wickedness, and it ought not be in the church. Don't name the name of the Lord if you're walking in these things.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: We're looking for real Christians to stand up because you cannot walk in power unless you walk in purity. I'm going to say that again. You cannot walk in power unless you walk in purity. And it takes power to be a real Christian.

R. G. Hardy: I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation unto everyone that believeth. Now you know the last prophet in the Bible before Judah went into and Israel, they went into bondage, and God was dealing with them and dealing with them and sending prophets and the last one He sent to them before they went into bondage was Jeremiah.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: And if you read the book of Jeremiah, I tell you what, you'll get a burden and you'll get depressed. Jeremiah can really pull you down. But here's the thing about it: there is such a parallel. Now you don't have to turn there, but I'm going to read you a couple of short things keeping in with what we've just talked about.

R. G. Hardy: Jeremiah 6:15 says, "Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination?" We're talking about the people of God now. "Nay, they were not at all ashamed and neither could they blush."

Sharon Hardy Knotts: There was a time if you spoke certain things, people would blush. But they don't blush anymore. They are so militant and arrogant and in your face with their sin. They don't blush. Do you know that man is the only animal or creature, however you want to put it, we're the only ones who can blush? And we're the only ones who need to.

R. G. Hardy: Because we're the only ones that can make a choice. You don't see perversion amongst other creatures that God made. And then verse 8:6, He said, "I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright and no man repented him of his wickedness saying, 'What have I done?'"

Sharon Hardy Knotts: No one, no one feels moved anymore to repent. It used to be you preach a message like this and you wouldn't even finish the message and people would be coming to the altar, crying and weeping. You wouldn't even get it all done because the Holy Ghost would convict their hearts.

But now people, they harden their hearts. And they're not hardening their hearts against the messenger; they're hardening their hearts against the message.

R. G. Hardy: And the messenger has to be like Paul said, "Woe unto me if I preach not the gospel." You know what God told Jeremiah? He said, "Lord, I'm sick and tired of going to these people. You make me tell them all these fierce, hard prophecies. You make me give them all these words of judgment and look at what they've done to me."

They threw him in a deep, deep well where he couldn't get out. They put him in prison and he's just a young man.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: He said, "I'm tired of going and preaching all these words to these people that don't want to hear it." God said, "You set your face like a flint. You make your face like granite and you preach it anyhow."

R. G. Hardy: And one more from Jeremiah 7:9: "Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense unto Baal and walk after other gods whom you knew not? And come and stand before me in this house which is called by my name and say, 'We are delivered to do all these abominations?'"

In this house which is called by my name, God repeats Himself. "Has it become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold even I have seen it, saith the Lord."

Sharon Hardy Knotts: And I say to you today, and I'm not just talking to Faith Tabernacle, and I'm not talking that if you're a visitor here, don't take this personal, but it's the Holy Ghost. And wherever this message may go after today, I'm saying to you, if you name the name of the Lord and you go into the house of God, no matter what, it's Church of God, etc., etc.

I want to know, are you a real Christian? Are you walking the walk? Are you living the life? If you're going to call yourself a Christian, then live right. And if you're not, get out of the church until you're ready to do right.

R. G. Hardy: Let those who name the name of Christ depart from iniquity. The Bible says it's because of these, it's because of hypocrites. He says that the way of truth is evil spoken of. He said, "You hypocrites, you won't go in and you stand in the way and you hinder other people that would come in."

Sharon Hardy Knotts: How many people have you heard say, "I would go to church but..."? Now I grant you, there are some people all that is for them is a lame excuse. It's a lame excuse, I grant you, and you know I've had that message: Eight Reasons Why Some Are Not Saved. I address those who say, "Oh, I can't get saved because of hypocrites."

R. G. Hardy: And a lot of them, that's just an excuse. But there are many people that they don't know enough about God, enough about the Bible, they don't understand what hypocrites are. They don't know that Jesus hated hypocrites too.

The only time that Jesus ripped people apart was talking to hypocrites. He didn't rip apart the sinner, He didn't rip apart the woman at the well, He didn't rip apart the woman caught in adultery, He didn't rip any of them apart, only the hypocrite.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: But how many know that today there are some people that have stumbled and stumbled and stumbled because they see people that claim to be Christians and they live all kinds of lives of sin. And they figure well, I surely couldn't live right so no sense me joining.

If I want to be around that kind of people, I'd just go to the bar. I'd just go to the club. If I want to be around people that try to pick you up or pick up your spouse, if I want to be around people that like to speak all kinds of vulgar talk and talk all kinds of sexual smut and stuff, I don't need to go to church. I just go where I always go.

R. G. Hardy: But I'm looking for the real Christians. Turn with me to Psalm 24, please. Psalm 24. The Psalmist is going to ask the questions we need to ask today. He's asking the questions and then he's going to turn around and give us the answers. Psalm 24:3, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord or who shall stand in his holy place?"

Sharon Hardy Knotts: The hill of the Lord referred to Mount Zion. Mount Zion is where the temple was built. The holy place referred to God's holy altar where worship and service was done. And then he turns around and answers his own question.

R. G. Hardy: Verse 4, "He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation."

Sharon Hardy Knotts: This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. I'm asking you today by the Holy Ghost, I want to know who is going to ascend unto the hill of the Lord? Who's going to stand on his holy platform? Who's going to sing the songs of praise and worship? Who's going to sit on that organ and on those drums and those instruments?

R. G. Hardy: I want to know who is going to stand up in the house of God. I tell you who it's going to be: those who have a pure heart, those who have clean hands. And if you don't have a pure heart and you don't have clean hands, you have no business up there.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Anybody, anybody, anybody can come and sit in this church. Anybody can come and sit in these pews. Doesn't matter who you are, what you are, where you've been, what you've done, you can come and sit in these pews.

But when you step over and you get up on that altar, you better be living right. You better be walking right. Jesus gave the parable that they threw out the great net and he said they took in many, many, many kinds of fishes.

R. G. Hardy: And some of them weren't good fish. Some people go in fishing for fish that they'll throw it right back in. Why? Well, it was fun to catch them but they don't taste so good. How many know there's some fish, they're fun to catch but they're not good eating?

Sharon Hardy Knotts: And he threw out the big net and they took in many, and he said don't worry about it. The net goes out there, the net doesn't say are you good to eat or you're not good to eat, the net just takes them all in.

You know, when you fish with a line you do one at a time. You look at that guy and say, "Well, don't want you, put you back." But when you throw out the net, you get whatever comes with it.

R. G. Hardy: And sometimes you get old pieces of leather shoes and sometimes when you set out the net you get an old rusty bucket. You don't know what you're going to get in the net. God said, "Don't worry about it, throw out the net and I'll separate the good from the bad."

Sharon Hardy Knotts: But when you get up on that holy mountain and you get up on that holy hill and you stand in the place of a worshipper and you stand in the place of someone who stands there that other people are looking to, you need to walk the walk. You need to walk it. I tell you who it's going to be: it's going to be somebody with clean hands.

I remember a few years ago I had a dream. And in the dream I was walking around with white gloves on. Now I know today sometimes you'll see people they say they're a missionary or an usher and they wear them.

R. G. Hardy: But you know when I was a little girl in the 50s and early 60s, we got dialed up on Sunday. We had fancy frilly little dresses. We wore hats on Sunday morning. We really got dressed up.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: And back then, little girls wore white gloves when they were dressed up. How many remember? You remember wearing white gloves when you were dressed up? Especially at least on Easter, you wore white gloves. And you just felt so prissy and so pretty and cute because you had your little white gloves on.

R. G. Hardy: And in this dream I was a full-grown adult walking around with these white gloves, which we know is no longer in style. And in the dream somebody walked up to me and said, "Why are you wearing those white gloves?"

Sharon Hardy Knotts: And without missing a beat I said, "Because I have clean hands and a pure heart." When I woke up I thought, Lord, You mean me? You mean me, Lord? Is that me, Lord?

R. G. Hardy: But then I realized that in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, every day being washed in the water of the word, being cleansed every day from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, God will give you clean hands and a pure heart.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Does that mean you're perfect? No. Does that mean you wear a halo? Certainly not. But it means your heart is bent towards God. You're leaning towards God. You want righteousness, you want godliness, you want purity, you want truth.

R. G. Hardy: You don't always do everything exactly right, but when you do wrong your heart is convicted and immediately you take care of it. And knowing that if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I want to know, will the real Christians with pure heart and clean hands please stand up! Hallelujah!

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Hallelujah! If you're real, you can stand up. Hallelujah! You see Jesus said in Matthew 5:8, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." And in the Greek, it's a present tense. And this is important because it says pure in heart like that's some stagnant state. And that's not how it is in the real world.

R. G. Hardy: We all know that. But what does the Greek say? The Greek says blessed are they who are always purifying their heart. You see, it's a perpetual thing. It's a daily thing. However long you walk with Jesus until He comes for His church or takes you by way of the grave, you're going to be purifying your heart every day for the rest of your life.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: John wrote it in 1 John the third chapter. He talked about seeing Jesus in all His glory. He said that oh beloved, what manner of love the Father's bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God and that's who we are.

And it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when we see Him we shall see Him as He is. And He's not on the cross anymore. He's the risen Lord of glory. And we will see Him as He is and here's the good part: we will be just like Him.

R. G. Hardy: And then he said, while we're getting all happy we'll be just like Him. Verse 3 he said, and everyone that has this hope purifies himself even as the standard is He is pure. Okay now, I'm going to shout, but I'm also going to walk soberly.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: And realize it means that if I have this hope, I'm not going to lose my hope. I'm going to see Him as He is, I'm going to be like Him in His glory. And while I'm on this earth, I'm going to continually purify myself. And my standard is not Bishop Wonderful.

R. G. Hardy: And my standard is not Apostle the Great One. My standard is not so-and-so or so-and-so. My standard is Jesus Christ Himself. Hallelujah! Keep your eyes on Jesus. He's the pure one. He's the perfect one.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Because you get your eyes on someone, and I've done it before in the past. There were certain evangelists I loved. I couldn't wait for their show to come on. I hung on every word they preached. And they preached the truth!

R. G. Hardy: There's some, this one I had in mind, nobody preached better than him. I mean he preached it hot, heavy, down. I loved it. I got his magazine, I would devour it, I would take notes. And this person had a huge, huge moral fall.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: I was devastated. When it first came out, I said no, I refuse to believe it. I said it was the media, they had made it up and it was some campaign. I refused to believe it until I saw him himself say, "I have sinned," with tears coming down his face.

R. G. Hardy: And I thought oh my Lord and my God. It really upset me. Now did it make me quit the Lord? No, because my salvation wasn't in this guy. But I can see where babies in Christ and people that don't know yet, I can see where it threw them for a loop.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: And this person did not commit the unpardonable sin. It was forgivable. God forgave them. They preached the gospel again. But here's the thing about it: the damage and the fallout that it does. It can happen to any of us.

R. G. Hardy: So we've got to not put our eyes on a preacher. Everybody has their favorite preachers, come on tell the truth. And if you like the way someone preaches better than somebody else, that's your personal prerogative.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Now you still support and love the other preachers. You love them too and you support them but there's some that just kind of you get it and you love to hear them preach. But don't ever put people up on a pedestal.

R. G. Hardy: Don't ever put a preacher on a pedestal! Because I guarantee you preachers have a bigger target on their back. Because if the devil can get a preacher to mess up just like I just talked about, he can cause many people to get shook up.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: And the worst thing is it brings a reproach to the name of Jesus to those who don't know. And so we've got to be pure even as He is pure. And the way that we do that is by the washing of the water of the word.

Amen, what a sin-busting, devil-chasing message, Will the Real Christian Please Stand Up! It's time for everyone who names the name of the Lord to depart from iniquity. If you're not living right, don't call yourself a Christian, and get out of the church until you're ready to walk the talk. It's time for Christian celebrities to lay down their titles and take up their towels of humility and wash the feet of the saints, that is serve the body of Christ.

It's time for the righteous of this generation who stand in God's holy hill behind the pulpits and lecterns of Christianity to purify their hearts and cleanse their hands. And it's time for all of us to prepare ourselves for the onslaught of religious, especially anti-Christian persecution, that is being unleashed in our nation with increase as perilous times are here.

If you were stirred by this clarion call of the Holy Spirit and you want to hear this message again or share it with others, please order the CD offer SK162 for a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. And help us keep messages like, Will the Real Christian Please Stand Up!, on the air. Send $10 or more to Sound of Faith. The address is PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Request offer SK162. Or if you prefer, order online at soundoffaith.org. Once again the mailing address: PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Until next time, this is Sharon Knotts saying, "Maranatha."